This website is pro-porn, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to look at all pro-porn media uncritically. A while back, Peter Suderman wrote an article for Reason Magazine called Does Porn Make Society Better?It’s about time we start looking at these questions head-on, but I object to the argument’s basis: conflation, or rather comparing as two equal values, pornand violence. I still want to see an argument about porn making society better or worse without having to compare it to extreme violence. Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating piece. I’m curious to hear your opinions… Unfortunately, women as porn viewers are left out of the discussion. Click through to the full article for Reason’s linkage. Snip:
Leaving aside the inherent problem of determining what makes someone a “better” person, there is some reasonably good evidence to suggest that increased access to pornographyand violent entertainment make society better off by providing an outlet for aggressive, anti-social urges. Here’s Steven Landsburg summarizing the evidence that porn reduces rape at Slate:
“A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, povertyand unemployment rates, population density,and so forth.”
Landsburg also notes a study by University of California professors Gordon Dahland Stefano DellaVigna that suggests violent movies produce a comparable effect:
“What happens when a particularly violent movie is released? Answer: Violent crime rates fall. Instantly. Here again, we have a lot of natural experiments: The number of violent movie releases changes a lot from week to week. One weekend, 12 million people watch Hannibal,and another weekend, 12 million watch Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. (read more, reason.com)
Photograph by CinemaCowgirl.
That’s a strange hodge-podge of an article… and you’re right, the conflation of porn and violence is startling, and a bit insulting to those of us who do not see violence or wish to see it when we watch porn.
Pornography: Does it lead to crime? Part 2
http://wqebelle.blogspot.com/2010/11/pornography-does-it-lead-to-crime-part.html
The Effects of Pornography: an international perspective
Author: Milton Diamond, Ph.D.
Published in: Porn 101: Eroticism, Pornography, and the First Amendment
Editors: James Elias, Veronica Diehl Elias, Vern L. Bullough, Gwen Brewer, Jeffrey J. Douglas & Will Jarvis
Promethius Press
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1999-effects-of-pornography.html
The concern that countries allowing pornography and liberal anti-obscenity laws would show increased sex crime rates due to modeling or that children or adolescents in particular would be negatively vulnerable to and receptive to such models or that society would be otherwise adversely effected is not supported by evidence. It is certainly clear from the data reviewed, and the new data and analysis presented, that a massive increase in available pornography in Japan, the United States and elsewhere has been correlated with a dramatic decrease in sexual crimes and most so among youngsters as perpetrators or victims.
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Sex abuse of any kind is deplorable and should be eliminated. Rape and sex crimes, like any criminal activities are blights on society which should be expunged. The question remains “How best to do this?” Most assuredly, focusing energy in the wrong direction, or taking actions just to placate victims, politicians or irate citizens will not solve the problem or help. Nor will spreading myths or misinformation. Removing pornography from our midst will, according to the evidence, only hurt rather than help society.
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I think it is better to expend our energies in two directions. 1) Make better pornography so that preferred role models are portrayed and more segments of society can come to appreciate or at least understand and tolerate its value; and 2) turn our research to other directions to eliminate or reduce the social ills of rape and other sex crimes. The best place to look is probably in the home during the first decade of life. But it is only by research that we can continue to understand how to most effectively meet this social challenge. Governments as well as the pornography industry itself would do well to finance and encourage such research.